Rev. Irene Monroe is a religion columnist, public theologian, and speaker. As an African American feminist theologian, she speaks for a sector of society that is frequently invisible.
Monroe is a sought-after speaker, preacher and writer about women’s spirituality and gender issues. She conducts workshops on women's healing, bodies and spirituality.
Presently, Monroe, writes several regular columns. She pens a biweekly column, "The Religion Thang," for
Newsweekly, a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender newspaper that circulates widely throughout New England and a monthly online column "Queer Take" for
The Witness Magazine, an Episcopalian journal that examines church and society in light of faith and conscience. Additionally Monroe writes a spirituality column for
ARISE Magazine, a magazine for people of African descent; she was a 2002 guest columnist for
Open Hands, a religious queer magazine, and has written columns for
Venus magazine. Her writings have also appeared in
The Advocate and in the
Boston Globe.
Monroe’s columns are an integration of African American, gender, queer and religious studies. As an religion columnist, Monroe tries to inform the public of the role religion plays in discrimination against LGBT people and how religious intolerance and fundamentalism not only shatters the goal of democracy, but also aids in perpetuating other forms of oppressions such as racism, sexism, classism and anti- Semitism.
Monroe is a doctoral candidate in the Religion, Gender and Culture program at Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge, MA, and a Ford Foundation fellow. She was also the head teaching fellow of the Rev. Peter Gomes, the Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church at Harvard University who is the author of the best seller,
The Good Book.
Monroe has been invited to speak at dozens of universities, events and conferences, including at Harvard, MIT, Brandeis, the American Academy of Religion, Penn State, Brown, Yale, John Hopkins, and the National Conference of Christians and Jews, and at Vassar she gave the baccalaureate address. In addition, she has preached in many churches, including Harvard's Memorial Church, The Riverside Church in New York City, and San Francisco's Metropolitan Community Church.
Monroe has received a number of honors and awards for her achievements. Examples include The Cambridge Peace and Justice Award, the Boston Certificate of Recognition for continued leadership and dedication to Boston's Gay and Lesbian Community, the Harvard University Certificate of Distinction in Teaching, and she was bestowed the honor of being grand marshal in the Boston Pride Celebration.
Monroe was profiled in the September 2001 issue of
O Magazine. In 1998, she was profiled in
Out Magazine as Out 100: The People Who Rocked 1998. She is profiled twice in the
Boston Globe, and in June 1999 she was profiled in the Gay Pride Episode of “In the Life TV” which was nominated for an Emmy. In 1997,
Boston Magazine cited her as one of Boston's 50 Most Intriguing Women, and in 1990, she was honored with the Unitarian Universalist Feminist Theology Award.
Monroe was a board member for the Millennium March on Washington on April 30, 2000, and she is presently a board member for the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, CA, Equal Partners of Faith, Cambridge Family YMCA, National Black Justice Coalition. Her papers are at the Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe College’s research library on the history of women in America.
A native of Brooklyn, NY, Monroe graduated from Wellesley College and Union Theological Seminary at Columbia University, and served as a pastor at an African American church in New Jersey before coming to Harvard.
